[🐛 Bug]: Unable to launch url in Selenium-automated Firefox browser due to temp user profile copy

[MagdelineNg]

What happened?

My desktop app redirects user to a login screen on Firefox, and I want to automate it using Selenium. My current workflow:

1. Launch Selenium-controlled Firefox browser using GeckoDriver
2. Click on "Login" button on my desktop app. The desktop app launches the login screen on user's OS default browser using the default user profile (in which case I set in profiles.ini to the temp profile copy created by Selenium).
3. (ERROR) Popup on the error below is displayed

Firefox is already running, but is not responding. The old Firefox process must be closed to open a new window.

How can we reproduce the issue?

## Testcase


import configparser
import os

web_driver = selenium_webdriver.Firefox(executable_path='C:\\Users\\mnxl\\.wdm\\drivers\\geckodriver\\win64\\v0.34.0\\geckodriver')
profile = web_driver.capabilities['moz:profile']

Path to the Firefox profiles folder
profiles_path = os.path.expanduser(r'~\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox')

Path to the profiles.ini file
profiles_ini_path = os.path.join(profiles_path, 'profiles.ini')

Read the profiles.ini file
config = configparser.ConfigParser()
config.read(profiles_ini_path)

Find the section for the profile to set as default
for section in config.sections():

   if config.has_option(section, 'Path') and config.get(section, 'Path') == profile:
       # Set this profile as the default
       config.set(section, 'Default', '1')
   else:
       # Set all other profiles as not default
       config.set(section, 'Default', '0')
Write the changes back to the profiles.ini file
with open(profiles_ini_path, 'w') as configfile:

   config.write(configfile)

### Operating System

Win 11

### Selenium version

Python Selenium 3.141.0

### What are the browser(s) and version(s) where you see this issue?

Firefox  125.0.3 

### What are the browser driver(s) and version(s) where you see this issue?

GeckoDriver 0.34.0 (Installed with GeckoDriverManager

### Are you using Selenium Grid?

No.

[github-actions[bot]]

@MagdelineNg, thank you for creating this issue. We will troubleshoot it as soon as we can.

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Thank you!

[MagdelineNg]

Referred to these issues on Selenium creating a temporary user profile copy, but this creates a problem for apps that use default user profile to launch a url in browser as the url cannot be launched in the existing Selenium browser for automation purposes. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/69448781/selenium-throws-error-if-an-instance-of-firefox-is-already-open https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40521731/why-selenium-always-create-temporary-firefox-profiles-using-web-driver

[diemol]

I don't know how Selenium can help here. You are manipulating a profile being used, and I wonder if Firefox plays well with that.

For testing purposes, somehow your desktop app needs to know to which Firefox instance it has to connect for the validation. You should also explore if there is a way to mock that interaction. In any case, this is more about how to automate a flow rather than an issue in Selenium.

Please ask questions using the different options below.

[github-actions[bot]]

💬 Please ask questions at:

• 📫 The Selenium user group
• 📮 StackOverflow
• 🗣 Our IRC/Slack/Matrix channels where the community can help you as well

[MagdelineNg]

@diemol I raised an issue in Geckodriver here https://github.com/mozilla/geckodriver/issues/2179#issuecomment-2095912418 , but I believe it may be related to Selenium Firefox webdriver options. I am not sure how to remove the options set by Selenium webdriver by default, such as -no-remote , and also how to set Firefox environment variables(such as MOZ_MARIONETTE) in the script as well

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue has been automatically locked since there has not been any recent activity since it was closed. Please open a new issue for related bugs.